<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>college!emix by jerybird</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26633980">college!emix</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerybird/pseuds/jerybird'>jerybird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>snonk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, College, emix, this is weirdly entertaining to write, totally not living vicariously through this</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:00:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,729</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26633980</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerybird/pseuds/jerybird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>emory and felix are roommates. neither of them are very good at it. it's the thought that counts, right?</p><p>enjoy, birdie :D</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Felix West/Emory Hayes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. roommates</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/writer_bird/gifts">writer_bird</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Emory wasn’t sure what was going on.<br/>
He often wasn’t sure what was going on. This time, though, he was even more confused than usual.<br/>
“Here you are,” the girl at the front desk had said, smiling and handing him a pair of keys. “Your roommate was here just a minute ago.”<br/>
Last Emory had checked, he didn’t have a roommate.<br/>
“Okay,” he said, taking the keys from her. “Thanks.”<br/>
He didn’t have much, just a suitcase full of clothes and a lamp he’d picked up on a whim. It was a nice lamp, he thought.<br/>
Around him, other students streamed into the halls, chattering excitedly. They all pushed carts, carts full of things Emory had never had the money to afford. Nobody looked twice at Emory and his lamp. Still, he felt like all eyes were on him.<br/>
Pathetic, he thought, before remembering that he was Trying Not To Do That.<br/>
He scooted past a kid with two carts and an emotional mother. There were a lot of emotional mothers here, actually.<br/>
Emory looked down at his lamp and sighed.<br/>
I asked for a single room, right? he thought, standing in front of his door. Room 296. And they told me I got one.<br/>
Maybe the girl at the front desk had misremembered.<br/>
He sure hoped so.<br/>
In. Out.<br/>
He opened the door.</p><p>There was a bed. And a dresser. And another bed, and another dresser, and a mop of dark hair perched on top of a rather dark individual.<br/>
Shit, Emory thought.<br/>
They looked up at him.<br/>
“Hi,” they said, and they sounded almost as unhappy as Emory did.<br/>
“Hi,” Emory said.<br/>
The room was bare, he realized. Two beds, two dressers, two humans. And atop one of the dressers, much to his chagrin, was a lamp.<br/>
“Well fuck me,” he muttered, shutting the door.<br/>
The person drew their legs up under themself on the bed and raised their eyebrows. “Moving awfully quickly, wouldn’t you say?”<br/>
Against all odds, Emory felt himself flush beet red. “Ha ha,” he said, turning away from them and setting his own lamp on his dresser.<br/>
“What a comeback,” they said drily from behind him. “Let me guess. Football scholarship.”<br/>
Emory turned around again. “Seriously? That’s the conclusion you jump to?”<br/>
They shrugged. “You’re muscly and stupid. What else am I supposed to think?”<br/>
For a long moment, Emory just stared at them. Out of all the people I could have been paired with, he thought. And he left.</p><p>He didn’t return to the room until almost dark. He had no money, but he didn’t want to go to the dining hall, either; too high a chance of seeing his asshole roommate. Instead, he wandered the campus, always pretending to be on his way somewhere, never really going anywhere.<br/>
As the sun was setting, he made his way back to the dorm building. Outside, clusters of students stood about, chatting and laughing. Emory walked through the middle of it, somehow invisible to all of them. As always.<br/>
The college had sent out an email about a bonfire a few days before. Some sort of mandatory welcome event. Emory could see it from here; though he was tempted to skip, the thought of getting in trouble for something so small this early in the year drew him forward.<br/>
The crowd around the fire was large. Emory scanned the crowd and saw no sign of his roommate; that, at least, was a blessing.<br/>
Someone stood up in front of the group and began to talk. Emory tuned out only a minute or two into the speech. His roommate still wasn’t here. Imagine being privileged enough to skip out on mandatory events, he thought, torn between bitterness and the uncomfortable thought that someone who only brought a lamp as decoration probably wasn’t very privileged at all.<br/>
And then, as if they’d been summoned, his roommate was standing at his side.<br/>
“Took you long enough,” Emory said.<br/>
They didn’t seem to hear him, staring into the fire with an expression fixed somewhere between horror and rapture. It was an expression Emory recognized, an expression he’d seen in the mirror before.<br/>
“Hey. You okay?” he asked.<br/>
They looked up at him, and suddenly Emory felt like a deer in the headlights. “What? Yeah. I’m fine,” they said. They were shaking.<br/>
Emory looked at them.<br/>
He looked at the fire.<br/>
He looked back at them.<br/>
“Have you eaten?” he asked.</p><p>They were in a restaurant.<br/>
Emory had even less money than before. He would worry about that later.<br/>
His roommate picked at their fries, their gaze still fixed on something Emory couldn’t see. Emory tried to be polite, to eat slowly, but he was ravenous. His burger was gone in an instant.<br/>
“What’s your name, football kid?” his roommate suddenly asked. Their smirk looked painted on.<br/>
“Emory,” Emory responded. “And… it’s a fencing scholarship. Actually.”<br/>
They blinked. “Really? I didn’t really think you were here for sports.” They chewed on another fry. “I’m Felix.”<br/>
Felix. “I like that name,” Emory said, rather lamely even by his standards.<br/>
This time, though, Felix’s smile was a little more genuine. “Thanks.” They looked down at their fries. “And thanks for the food.”<br/>
“Sure,” Emory said. “No problem.” He hesitated. “You didn’t seem to like the fire much.”<br/>
For a moment, Felix froze. Then, very deliberately, they set down the fry they were holding. “What’s it to you, sport boy?”<br/>
Shit. “Nothing,” Emory said hurriedly. “Nothing at all.”<br/>
Warily, Felix picked up another fry.<br/>
Shit shit shit. Of course. Five minutes into a normal conversation and Emory just had to go ahead and fuck it up.<br/>
“Let’s go back,” Felix said suddenly, pushing themself away from the table.<br/>
“Okay,” Emory said. “Sure.”<br/>
Together, they walked out of the restaurant.</p><p>The fire was still raging. It was even more obvious in the dark, a towering pyre of orange and red, flickering over the faces of the students clustered around it.<br/>
Felix shrank back next to Emory. He pretended not to notice.<br/>
Somebody threw more wood on, and the flames licked the sky.<br/>
Felix drew back even more.<br/>
Screw it, Emory thought, and he wrapped an arm around Felix. “Come on. Let’s go.”</p><p>Felix sat on their bed.<br/>
Emory sat on the floor.<br/>
Neither of them said a word.</p><p>It was dark.<br/>
“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Felix asked.<br/>
Emory looked up at them. “I am.”<br/>
Felix was silent for a minute or two. Then, “Oh.”<br/>
After a moment, they slid off the bed. “Good night, then.”<br/>
Maybe, Emory thought, having a roommate won’t be so bad.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. classmates</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So it turned out that Emory hated physics.<br/>There was a reason he’d gotten into school on his fencing skills alone. He realized that now. Maybe he should have listened to his therapist. She’d told him to focus on fencing, focus on what he really loved. Instead, he’d let the stubborn part of him, the part that wanted to prove Verix wrong, take over.<br/>And now here he was, failing what should have been an easy A.<br/>God, he hated being stupid.<br/>Two weeks into the semester, he arrived at the dorms in pouring rain. He’d forgotten an umbrella--more accurately, he didn’t have one--the rain slicked off his leather jacket with ease, but unfortunately he’d made the choice to cover his backpack with it instead of himself.<br/>In the lobby, he stopped to wring the frigid water out of his long, silver hair. That hair got a lot of looks from people. They thought it was a fashion statement.<br/>Emory supposed, in a way, it was. But none of them would believe the reasoning behind it, little that there was.<br/>Felix was lying upside-down on the bed when Emory opened the door to room 296. “Wow, you fall into the river or what?”<br/>“Oh shut up,” Emory grumbled, tossing his backpack onto his bed and flopping onto the floor next to it. At some point, a fluffy, hot pink rug had appeared there. Neither of the roommates had ever discussed it. Emory had never been more grateful for anything in his life.<br/>Felix closed their book and rolled over to face the ceiling. “Whatever, man. Just trying to make conversation.” At some point, a collection of glow-in-the-dark stars had appeared there. Neither of the roommates had ever discussed it. Emory thought Felix seemed less anxious about being cooped up in the dorm, at least.<br/>After a moment, Felix lifted their book again and kept reading. Emory, after a long moment of indecision, opened his backpack and pulled out his most recent physics exam.<br/>C minus.<br/>He’d gotten a fucking C minus.<br/>He stopped himself from hurling the paper with some effort. Over the top of the paper, he could see Felix, completely absorbed in whatever they were reading.<br/>He couldn’t let them know he was failing. He couldn’t. Because they were here on an academics scholarship, they were majoring in English, they were wicked smart. And if Emory, he of the fucking sports scholarship, let them realize how dumb he actually was—well. They’d said it best. Muscly and stupid. <br/>He didn’t want them to know how right they were.<br/>All there was to do was keep studying. Try again. Keep going. If he kept getting grades like this, the scholarship would be gone. Emory would have to move back to Eagle’s Landing, most likely—he didn’t have the money to do anything but crawl back to Verix.<br/>Crawl back to the bedroom in the house on the hill, third floor, second from the end.<br/>Gently, oh so gently, Emory set the exam down beside him and tried not to cry.</p><p>He shared two classes with Felix. Physics and government.<br/>Emory understood government. It made sense, which was more than he could say for any of his other classes. He’d attended enough of Verix’s political galas to gain a surprisingly complex understanding of what was happening.<br/>Felix, though, seemed to grasp everything with ease. He didn’t want it to be a competition. He really didn’t. And yet every A that Felix brought home made him more embarrassed.<br/>It wasn’t fair that everything came so easily to them. Emory was trying. Trying so, so hard. And yet nothing was enough.</p><p>Finally, on a morning so cold that frost spiderwebbed the window of the dorm, Emory broke.<br/>Another physics grade. A C this time. Hours upon hours of studying, and all Emory had gotten for his efforts was a measly two percent higher. <br/>He was going to flunk out of school, and then—and then—<br/>“You’re shaking,” Felix observed from their bed. They were weaving fake flowers together, some sort of weird hobby they’d gotten into over the last few weeks.<br/>Emory crushed his exam paper and hurled it at Felix’s head. It didn’t hurt. Clearly it didn’t. It was just paper. And yet the look that flashed across Felix’s face was the most pained thing Emory had ever seen.<br/>“Okay,” they said slowly. <br/>Emory left the room.</p><p>He sat on a low wall, overlooking the river. <br/>His breath pooled around him in the frigid air. Still he sat.<br/>His fingers were going numb. Still he sat.<br/>Why do I always mess everything up?<br/>He tugged his jacket more tightly around himself. Wow, you fall into the river or what? Felix had asked.<br/>Probably it would be better if he did.<br/>Someone swung their legs over the wall next to him. He jerked, startled. It was Felix, clad in only jeans and a faded tee, hands shoved deep in their pockets.</p><p>For a minute or two or three, they sat.<br/>“I’m sorry,” Felix said at last. Their voice was quiet. “For whatever I did.”<br/>Emory looked up. “What?”<br/>“I know I’m not always…” Felix shook their head, frustration evident. “I know I can be rude. I didn’t mean to.”<br/>Emory swirled those words around in his head. I really AM stupid, he thought, because I have no idea what they think is going on here.<br/>“I’m failing school,” Emory said instead.<br/>Now Felix was the one to look confused. “What?”<br/>Emory looked hard at the river. It was a very interesting river, he thought. So… grey. And flat. Perfectly reasonable that he would stare so intently at it.<br/>“I thought you…” Felix paused. <br/>Emory could practically hear the gears churning. Muscly and stupid. He glared even more aggressively at the river.<br/>“I’ll help you,” they said.<br/>Against his best efforts, Emory felt his gaze tear away from the river. “What? No. Why would you waste your time like that?”<br/>Felix scrunched their nose up against the cold. Cute, Emory thought, and then pretended he hadn’t thought anything at all. “Waste my time?” they asked. “You need help. So I’ll help you.”<br/>“It’s a waste of time because I’m no good at anything except stabbing things,” Emory said.<br/>Felix blinked.<br/>“No,” they said at last. They stared him right in the eyes. “I don’t think that’s true at all.”<br/>Emory blinked right back.<br/>“Here,” he said, shrugging his jacket off. “You must be freezing.”<br/>Felix looked down at the jacket they now held. For a long moment, they considered it. Then, quickly, they wrapped themself in it. It was a little too big. <br/>Cute, Emory thought again. <br/>This time, he didn’t pretend anything at all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. drinking buddies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Are you going tonight?”<br/>
Well, he hadn’t been planning on it. Hadn’t even considered it, in fact.<br/>
“Sure,” he said anyway, because a party with Felix sounded like a party he wanted to be at.</p><p>The party was at Oli’s house. That was because the party was always at Oli’s house.<br/>
Olivine was a mutual friend of Emory and Felix. She liked parties. She hosted them often. Both Emory and Felix had grown rapidly tired of attending; Emory wasn’t sure what made this particular party any different until they arrived.<br/>
Olivine’s self-proclaimed “drinking buddy,” Jamie, swung the door open. “Heyyyyy!” xe slurred, clearly already several drinks in.<br/>
“Hi,” Felix said flatly.<br/>
“Y’want a drink?” Jamie asked, already shoving a cup of punch at each of them. Emory took his cup, mainly because he didn’t know how to refuse xyr aggressive advances.<br/>
Felix smiled humorlessly. “No thank you,” they said, setting their cup down on a side table. “I don’t drink.”<br/>
Jamie slung an arm around Felix’s shoulders. “Awww, loosen up,” he said, taking another gulp from his own cup. “Y’only live once!” Felix tensed.<br/>
Very deliberately, Emory set his own cup down and lifted Jamie’s arm off of Felix. “They said no.”<br/>
“Whatever, man,” Jamie said, xyr eyes already on someone else. “Hey! Pretty boy!” Emory heard before they vanished into the chaos of Oli’s house.<br/>
Felix said something, but it was lost under the pulsating beat of whatever crazy music Olivine was playing.<br/>
“What?” Emory asked.<br/>
“Thanks,” Felix said more loudly, not looking at him. “I could have managed it myself, though.”<br/>
“I have no doubt,” Emory said. “Why are we here, anyway?”<br/>
Felix frowned. “Friend said she’d be here. I haven’t seen her in awhile, wanted to check up on her.” They glanced up at Emory. “You aren’t just here because I’m here, are you?”<br/>
Emory shook his head. “Of course not. I wanted to see the others.” It was only partially a lie.<br/>
“Okay,” Felix said. They were scanning the room behind Emory, clearly only very minimally invested in this conversation. Emory could see the moment they found their friend in the way their eyes lit up; he tried and failed not to be jealous.<br/>
“I’ll meet up with you in a bit,” Felix said. “See ya, sword boy.” And just like that, they were gone, squeezing past a couple fawning over a vase of lilies and vanishing into the crowd.</p><p>And now Emory was drinking.<br/>
He was wedged in between Olivine and Jamie. It was an uncomfortable situation, given that Olivine was practically on top of her girlfriend, Asra, and Jamie was pouting into xyr drink.<br/>
He hadn’t been planning to drink, he really hadn’t. He wasn’t old enough, for starters; more importantly, he’d wanted to impress Felix. But Felix was off in the corner, talking to some girl with dark hair and an eye patch, and Emory felt lost.<br/>
Jamie nudged him. He was on the edge, teetering closer to the line between being buzzed and genuinely drunk, and Jamie’s nudge registered somewhere in a blurry space of his mind not taken up by alcohol or Felix.<br/>
“Wanna get out of here?” Jamie asked. Emory looked over at xem. Xyr eyes were half-closed, xyr mouth curved in a lazy smirk.<br/>
Emory had to work hard to force out a coherent response. “No, I’m waiting for Felix.”<br/>
“Aw, c’mon,” Jamie said. He leaned on Emory a bit, still smirking. “Have a little fun. You only live once.”<br/>
“You mentioned,” Emory said. Vaguely uncomfortable, he took another swig of his drink.<br/>
Jamie went back to pouting for a moment, staring moonily at a boy who looked like he was trying a bit too hard to look like a broke college student. “He’ll never want me,” Jamie sighed.<br/>
Emory looked back and forth between the two for a moment. I agree completely, he thought. But that wasn’t any sort of way to make friends. Out loud, he said, “Then make him.”<br/>
Jamie looked up at Emory, considering. He took another sip of his drink, more slowly this time.<br/>
Over Jamie’s shoulder, Emory could see Felix approaching, their eyes narrowed. Emory began to stand, mouth opening to bid Jamie farewell. And suddenly a pair of foreign lips crashed into his own.<br/>
Jamie tasted like alcohol and lip balm, and for a startled moment Emory was frozen in place. And then there were two sets of hands on him, both pulling, and in an instant Emory was ripped away.<br/>
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Felix snarled, hands clutching at Emory’s shirt. They were livid, Emory could tell without even looking. “He’s drunk, you mor--you idiot!”<br/>
Jamie backed up, hands raised, still smirking a bit. “He told me to make Ethan want me,” he said. “Thought it was an invitation.”<br/>
Emory’s skin felt hot. The lights were too bright, the music too loud, everything too much. “It’s fine,” he said, and the words sounded like they came from someone else.<br/>
Felix still had the sides of his shirt balled in their hands. Emory couldn’t tell if they were trying to hold him back or keep him close. He wasn’t sure the two were all too different. “We’re going home,” they said quietly. “Tell Olivine thanks for the party.”</p><p>In the dorm, Emory stood.<br/>
Felix paced in front of him. They looked uncomfortable. Emory wasn’t sure why.<br/>
“Sorry,” they said finally. “If you. You know. Wanted to kiss xem.”<br/>
Emory shifted awkwardly. “No. I didn’t.” Lip balm and alcohol. He shivered.<br/>
Felix’s expression darkened. “That’s what I thought.” Their pacing became more frantic, and then, all too suddenly, they were wrapped around him in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” they said, voice muffled by his shirt.<br/>
It took a moment, but Emory managed to sort through his sudden tumult of feelings and hug them back. “Why?”<br/>
“Because he shouldn’t have done that,” Felix said, a bit too forcefully. “Maybe if you weren’t fucking drunk you’d understand.”<br/>
He could feel the outline of Felix’s spine through their shirt. He could feel their hands clenching in his own shirt again. It was hard to focus on much else, but he made the effort. “It’s alright.”<br/>
Lip balm and alcohol.<br/>
“It’s not alright,” Felix said. They pulled away suddenly, and Emory could have sworn he could see the hint of a blush in the light of the streetlamps that spilled through the window.</p><p>He should have been asleep.<br/>
He laid on his rug, the one Felix had bought for him, and he looked up at the stars, the ones he’d bought for Felix.<br/>
It’s not alright.<br/>
Felix hadn’t talked to him again; they’d gotten ready for bed quickly, silently, and then buried themself in a mountain of blankets on their bed.<br/>
On the floor, Emory shivered.<br/>
It’s not alright.<br/>
A tumult of lip balm and hands and shirts and drinks whirled through his mind, a never-ending show where all the characters were nothing more than feelings. A storm of emotions, one that produced real rain.<br/>
He should have been asleep.<br/>
It’s not alright.</p><p>And then.<br/>
Unexpectedly.<br/>
A rustle.<br/>
Emory opened his eyes, the world a blurred kaleidoscope of lens flares.<br/>
A body pressed against his.<br/>
A blanket draped over them both, soft and heavy.<br/>
A finger wiped the tears away.<br/>
“Sleep,” Felix said. “You’ll forget in the morning.”<br/>
Emory didn’t want to forget.<br/>
But Emory slept.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. breakfast club</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>CW for relationship stuff :/</p><p>Emory’s head hurt.<br/>“Morning,” Felix said sleepily. <br/>Emory’s heart hurt.<br/>Why was Felix on the floor? Why was Felix, his roommate, clinging to him like--like they were something more than roommates? <br/>He sifted through his memories of the last night. They were chaotic and confused, messy, like someone had dropped a slide deck on the floor and picked it up in whatever order they pleased. <br/>He had drank. He could have inferred that without the memory of alcohol though.<br/>And with that memory, with the sour bitterness of the drink, came something sweet, fruity--fake fruit, lip balm--and somebody had kissed him and he didn’t know who and now he was lying on the floor with a blanket over him and Felix’s arm draped under that and <br/>suddenly<br/>everything<br/>felt<br/>s u f f o c a t i n g.<br/>He sat up quickly, his breath coming in too-short gasps, the world crumpling around the edges as the blood rushed from his head. Felix sat, too, sleep crusting their already-concerned eyes. They shouldn’t be worrying this early in the morning, Emory thought, and with too much effort he managed to compose himself.<br/>“Emory, are you okay?” Felix asked, brow wrinkled, their hand pushing at Emory’s like they wanted to hold it. Emory stood up, the panic far from gone, stumbled over the blanket. He grabbed a sweatshirt--Felix had never given his jacket back and he had never asked--shrugged it on, and left.</p><p>He had been out by the river again, staring down at the tumult of icy water. A girl he knew from English class had showed up. He’d talked to her quite a few times before, but knew almost nothing about her; all he knew was her name, Crystar, and her passion, astronomy. <br/>“What’s wrong?” Crystar asked. <br/>Emory folded his arms. “Who says anything’s wrong?”<br/>“I do,” she said. “You’re out by the river at 7 in the morning. Are you okay?”<br/>Emory raised his eyebrows. “Are you okay? You’re out here, too.”<br/>Crystar nodded. “I come out here to… meditate.” She looked off over the water. “Sometimes I sleep out here. It’s easier to see the stars.”<br/>“Okay, star girl, whatever you say,” Emory said, smirking. “You do you.”<br/>She smiled hesitantly back at him. “But you never answered me. Are you okay?”<br/>Emory fiddled with the hem of his sweater. “I’m fine. Really. Just had… a long night.”<br/>“Oh.” They sat in silence for a minute or two, Emory still worrying at his sweater, Crystar seemingly lost in thought. “Want to come get breakfast?” she suddenly asked. “I’m meeting some friends there.”<br/>Emory looked up at her. “Yeah. That would be good,” he said. “That would be really good.”</p><p>And of course Crystar was friends with Felix.<br/>He shouldn’t have been surprised. Felix was friends with everybody. <br/>They locked eyes for just a moment across the table before Emory looked down at his tray of food. He could feel his roommate’s stare burning two holes into his forehead; stubbornly, he resisted the urge to look up.<br/>Felix would know what happened last night, the rational part of him said.<br/>Felix could have been what happened last night, the scared part of him said.<br/>He let the scared part win. He always did.<br/>He ate his pancakes and let Felix tear him apart with their eyes.</p><p>They confronted him outside the bathroom.<br/>“I’m sorry,” they said.<br/>Emory’s mind was whirling--Felix could have been what happened--and it took too much effort to keep his hands from shaking. <br/>“What are you sorry about?” he asked, more harshly than he’d intended.<br/>Felix sighed, ran a hand through their hair. “I--I don’t know. Whatever made you run off. I’m sorry I scared you.”<br/>“You didn’t scare me,” Emory said, even though they had. <br/>“Okay,” Felix said, even though they didn’t look convinced. Then, hesitantly, “do you… remember last night?”<br/>“No,” said Emory, because he didn’t, not really. “But something happened.”<br/>Felix didn’t look at him. “Yes. Something happened.”<br/>“Who was it?” Emory asked, the words near-impossible to force from his lips.<br/>Felix hesitated. “Jamie,” they said.<br/>“Oh,” Emory said. “Oh.”</p><p>Crystar was roommates with the captain of the ski team. <br/>The captain of the ski team was named Blizzen.<br/>She ate a lot, even by Emory’s standards, and she spent half of breakfast hurling insults at him. He reciprocated accordingly.<br/>When they left the dining hall, she spent a good few minutes hurling snow at him instead. He reciprocated accordingly.<br/>“See you, loser,” she said, and she left, Crystar in tow.</p><p>And so Emory was left alone with Felix once again.<br/>They looked at him sideways, like they’d scare him away if they faced him head on. They looked uncertain. It was a look they didn’t wear often or well.<br/>“I’m fine,” Emory said.<br/>Felix shoved their hands into the pockets of their jacket. His jacket, actually. They wore it everywhere nowadays--Emory wasn’t sure if they even had another one. “You don’t seem fine.”<br/>“Well, I am,” said Emory. “So. Don’t worry.”<br/>Felix sighed. “Come on. Let’s just go home.”<br/>Emory didn’t know when they’d started calling the dorm home. He liked it. “Yeah, let’s.”<br/>They were in the lobby when they saw him.<br/>Jamie looked like shit, Emory thought. The epitome of hungover. <br/>“Hey,” Jamie said, falling into step with Emory and Felix. “How goes it, fellow gays?”<br/>Alcohol and lip balm and blankets and blue satin and--<br/>“It goes,” Emory said, because it did. He felt like cardboard. Too stiff. Too breakable.<br/>Felix smiled that whiteboard-marker smile. “Hey, how about you leave?”<br/>Jamie blinked. “Huh?”<br/>“Leave,” Felix said, still pretending to smile. “What, are you deaf and blind?”<br/>Jamie stiffened, eyes narrowing. “What the fuck are you talking about?”<br/>“Oh come on,” Felix said, smile wiped away. Whiteboard, Emory thought again. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”<br/>“I don’t,” Jamie said. “Was I an idiot last night? Wait, don’t answer that, I’m always an idiot.”<br/>Felix just looked at xem.<br/>“Come on,” Emory said. “This is silly. Let’s go upstairs.” He didn’t want this.<br/>Felix didn’t move.<br/>“What’s going on?” asked another voice, a voice as polished as the person it belonged to. It was the rich boy from the party. Emory remembered looking at him, remembered blurred fragments of thought. He didn’t remember his name.<br/>Jamie looked relieved. “Pretty boy! I didn’t know you were in this building, too!”<br/>“Yeah, why aren’t you off living it up at your parents’ estate?” Felix asked, drawing a smile back on. “You could bring the drunk kid with you, too.”<br/>The rich boy narrowed his eyes. “Nice to meet you, too.”<br/>“Come on,” Emory said. His hand went to his side by instinct, but of course his épée was nowhere to be found. Generally, the university didn’t look too favorably on carrying around long, pointy sticks to hit people with.<br/>Emory was shaking. He hoped Felix didn’t notice.<br/>The rich boy considered Emory for a moment. Emory got the feeling he was being judged. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Come on, Jamie.”<br/>“Okay!” Jamie said, more excitedly than the situation probably warranted. “Let’s go, pretty boy!”</p><p>In the room, Felix perched on their bed and considered Emory. “What’s wrong with you?”<br/>“What?” Emory asked.<br/>“First all that panicking this morning. And then you didn’t even want to face Jamie.” They tilted their head at him. “What’s up?”<br/>“Nothing,” Emory said. “What’s up with you? Why do you care so much?”<br/>“It’s just what I do,” Felix said flatly. “Whatever, man. Come on. You promised you’d explain that stupid government assignment.”<br/>Emory didn’t think Felix needed their (admittedly stupid) government assignment explained at all. But he was grateful.</p><p>It was late now. The sun was setting, sending slanting rays of reddish-bronze across the walls and ceiling of the room. Felix was rereading Carry On for about the fourth time this semester. Emory was pretending to write a physics essay. He wondered if Felix’s choice of literature was intended to get a point across.<br/>Alcohol and lip balm and smiles and--<br/>“I don’t like beds,” he said before he meant to.<br/>Slowly, Felix set down their book. They looked over at him. “I’ve noticed.”<br/>Emory looked back at them. “Not a big fan of unexpected cuddling, either.”<br/>“Yeah. I’m sorry.”<br/>They looked at each other.<br/>“So are you going to explain, or did you just feel like bringing that up?” Felix asked after a minute.<br/>Emory looked out the window at the sunset. “No, I think that’s all.”<br/>Alcohol and lip balm and arms and blankets and blue fucking satin.<br/>It took a long, long moment. <br/>“Holy shit,” Felix said.</p><p>And now they were on the floor again.<br/>They looked at him like he was a wounded animal.<br/>“Do you want a hug?” they asked. Carefully. Like they were going to scare him off.<br/>He nodded.<br/>They hugged him.<br/>Carefully.<br/>He hated that they had to be careful.<br/>He loved that they were.<br/>“I’m sorry,” they said. Muffled. “I’m so, so sorry.”<br/>They didn’t have to be sorry.<br/>He hated that they were.<br/>“Don’t be,” he said. <br/>“Too late,” they said.<br/>“Okay,” he said.<br/>They smelled like lemongrass and soap.<br/>He hated that he loved it.<br/>He closed his eyes.<br/>He breathed.<br/>Alcohol and lip balm and satin. <br/>Lemongrass and soap and hugs.<br/>He breathed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been two weeks<br/>and even though Emory had thought everything would fall apart<br/>it hadn’t.<br/>Felix still helped him with physics. He wasn’t failing.<br/>They hadn’t rejected him, they hadn’t shunned him. They didn’t look at him with pity. <br/>It was cold out; the residence hall had started lighting the fireplace in the lobby. Emory walked between it and Felix on the way to and from the stairs.<br/>At night, sometimes, Felix slept on the floor, too.<br/>Emory taught them to defend themself. It was a skill he knew well, both from lessons with Verix and from fencing. It took the edge off some of the memories; it gave Felix a way to be mad.<br/>Because they were mad. Emory could see it beneath the smile. He didn’t know why, he didn’t know what for, but they were mad.<br/>He would be there if they wanted to tell him. He knew that much.<br/>After all, what are friends for?</p><p>And he hated that that made him so angry.<br/>No, not angry. Not really. It was something like jealousy, except that there was nobody to be jealous of. <br/>“This is my friend Emory,” Felix would say. They knew a lot of people, which Emory never ceased to find surprising, given their temperament, and so there were a lot of introductions.<br/>Friend.<br/>It should have been a nice word. A sweet word. And it was. Sweet like a lemon drop.</p><p>They did a lot together these days, they and their always-growing friend group. Olivine and her girlfriend Asra were virtually inseparable; so were Ashail and faer girlfriend Aelyn. Jamie and Ethan floated in and out of the group on a whim; Emory had never figured out if they were actually together or not. He didn’t much care, either. He kept well away from Jamie, who still didn’t seem to have much of a concept of what xe’d done.<br/>Helia was there, too, at least physically. Emory didn’t know what was up with her. He figured she’d tell him if she wanted him to know for some reason.<br/>Crystar was also there. Emory liked her. She was an international student, or an immigrant, or maybe both, or possibly neither--Emory was very unclear on the details. All he knew was that she’d been found in the woods as a child (which woods? He didn’t know) and was here now. <br/>There were a lot of other people who rotated in and out of the group, too--Alaria, the captain of the fencing team, hung out with them occasionally, for one, as did Jasper, the weird kid who worked at Jimmy John’s on the weekends.<br/>It was nice, having friends.</p><p>Drace, another member of the group, had invited them all to the bowling alley.<br/>“It’s fun,” they’d said, “there’s an arcade, too!” And then Felix had said something sarcastic and they’d shouted a lot. That was how most interactions with Drace went.<br/>Emory had never been bowling before. The smell of the neat lines of faux-leather shoes and the oil that slicked the lanes hit his nose with a force that sent him reeling a bit.<br/>Felix grabbed his arm, rather unexpectedly, grinning excitedly. Emory hadn’t even noticed them arrive. “Come on! Let’s play pinball!”<br/>Emory let his roommate lead him over to the arcade. The back wall was lined with pinball machines; Emory had never played pinball, either.<br/>Emory had also never seen Felix this excited about anything, ever. He couldn’t stop the matching grin that crept onto his own face at the sight of Felix’s contagious excitement.<br/>“I haven’t played this in years!” Felix said, fishing a few quarters out of their pocket. They dropped a couple in Emory’s hand, almost bouncing a bit. “Come on, we can play a two-person one!”<br/>The only two-player pinball game was in the back corner, a newer-looking game with a lot of flashing lights and little levers. Emory was overwhelmed before the game even started; Felix still looked ready to explode.<br/>Clink, clink, clink went the quarters. Felix pressed the button for two players; Emory reached for the button closest to him, and Felix shunted him away, laughing. “We take turns, idiot!”<br/>Emory stood behind Felix and watched them play their turn. It looked simple enough; hit the buttons, move the levers, watch the ball kerchunk around the box. Don’t let it fall through the bottom.<br/>Felix was wearing his jacket again, the sleeves rolled up almost to their elbows. Their tongue was stuck out a little bit in concentration. Emory could smell them, lemongrass and soap. He hoped he wasn’t standing too close to them; he made no effort to move.<br/>“Dang it!” Felix said, not sounding disappointed in the slightest, as the ball was swallowed by the game. “Okay, now you go!”<br/>Emory stepped forward, wrapped a hand around each side of the game, rested his pointer fingers on the buttons. It was still a bit warm from Felix’s hands. <br/>He took a breath and waited.<br/>Nothing happened.<br/>“You’ve gotta pull the plunger, look!” Felix said, leaning into him a bit as they reached around him. “Here, I’ll do it.”<br/>The ball shot up into the game, and Emory was instantly lost. He only barely managed to save the ball from dropping out the bottom; Felix was laughing behind him, not malevolently. <br/>“How the--?!” Emory asked, leaning a bit into the game. The ball completely refused to do his bidding. “All this gravity and trajectory and stuff, you know I’m bad at physics!”<br/>“You really are bad at this,” Felix observed as Emory’s turn ended. They gently nudged him aside, but grabbed his arm when he tried to back up. “No, watch me. You’ve gotta aim for those targets there. A lot of stuff opens up secret passages or gives you special points when you hit it.”<br/>Felix clearly had a lot of practice with this. They racked up another thirty thousand points on their second turn; Emory was sitting at a measly six thousand.<br/>He took his spot in front of the game again, remembered after a moment that he had to pull the plunger, and just barely saved himself from instant failure again.<br/>“Okay, you’re officially hopeless,” Felix said, and suddenly they were pressed up behind him, arms wrapped around either side of him to get at the game machine.<br/>Emory’s entire face felt like it was on fire. Felix rested their hands on top of his; they pressed down on Emory’s hands and the game beneath, sending the little silver ball zinging around the game.<br/>“There,” Felix said, stepping away. Emory didn’t know how long it had been; when he looked up at the scoreboard, he had won.<br/>“Wow,” he managed, laughing and praying his blush wasn’t as obvious as it felt. “Not much of a game if you’re playing against yourself!”<br/>Felix made a pfft noise--and was that a hint of red on their cheeks, too? Surely not. “I used to play by myself all the time. There was an arcade by my house when I was a kid. Last time I was there, I still had the record on a couple of the games.”<br/>“HURRY UP, LOSERS, THE GAME’S STARTING!” Drace bellowed from over by one of the lanes. <br/>Giggling--giggling? Felix??--Felix nudged Emory. “Yeah, loser. Let’s go bowling.”</p><p>Surprisingly, Emory was not the biggest loser.<br/>He was actually right in the middle of the pack. Asra won by a landslide, much to Drace’s chagrin; most of the others were clumped in the middle.<br/>And Felix failed miserably.<br/>Well, miserably was perhaps the wrong word. They still looked ridiculously happy with the whole situation.<br/>As biggest loser, Felix was elected to go up to the counter and order a pizza from the emo person and their cat, which perched on their shoulder and probably wasn’t allowed in the bowling alley.<br/>“So,” Olivine asked as soon as they were gone, tucking her feet up on her chair, “are you and Felix a thing??”<br/>Emory blinked. “Who, me?”<br/>Drace rolled her eyes. “No, dummy, she was talking to Asra.”<br/>Emory laughed, silently begging his cheeks to stay their normal color. “No, no. We’re just friends.” <br/>His mouth tasted like lemon drops.</p><p>The pizza was mediocre at best. Emory still ate it, because he liked food.<br/>Next to him, Felix sipped on an enormous cup of Sprite. Their eyes were crinkled a bit at the corners. Emory had never seen them happy for such an extended period.<br/>He liked it.</p><p>Afterwards, they all went back to Oli’s, because she was rich and had a house. Emory hadn’t been back since the disastrous party a few weeks before; the memory of alcohol and lip balm had faded now, but he still tensed a bit upon walking through the door.<br/>Felix stuck close to his side, glaring accusingly at everything in sight as if the furniture had committed some offense as well.<br/>Emory forced himself to relax. He liked happy Felix. If he was the reason Felix looked so angry at the house, then he would relax. <br/>“To the basement!” Olivine exclaimed. </p><p>Felix held Emory back at the top of the stairs. <br/>“Are you okay?” they asked. Concerned. No longer giggling. <br/>Emory thought of pinball and smiled. “Yeah. I’m okay. Promise.”<br/>Felix stared him down for a moment longer; then, slowly, they nodded. “Tell me if you need anything, okay?”<br/>Emory smiled again. “Thanks, Felix.”<br/>They went downstairs.</p><p>Olivine had tried to break out the alcohol, but Felix had glared at her until she put it away again. Now they were sitting in a circle, passing around a bag of M&amp;Ms.<br/>“Truth or dare, anyone?” Asra asked.<br/>Crystar blinked at her. “Um… alright?”<br/>“Yes!!” Olivine exclaimed, taking a massive handful of chocolate and passing the bag along. “You first, Azzy!”<br/>Asra shrugged. “Alright. Truth or dare, Helia?”<br/>“Dare,” Helia said immediately.<br/>Asra thought for a moment. “I dare you to prank call Alaria.”<br/>Helia frowned but pulled out her phone. “I… don’t know how to prank call.”<br/>“Of course not,” Drace said. “Why am I not surprised at all?”<br/>Felix glared at them and scooted over by Helia. They leaned over next to her, began explaining, and Emory hated himself just a bit for being jealous.<br/>“Okay,” Helia said. She looked nervous, but she usually looked nervous. She tapped her screen, and the phone rang a few times before clicking. <br/>“Hello?” Alaria asked, her voice slightly staticky through the speaker of the phone.<br/>“HellothisisDomino’showmayIhelpyou?” Helia asked in one breath, staring intensely at her phone.<br/>The rest of the group doubled over in silent laughter. On the other side of the phone, Alaria sounded genuinely baffled. “I have caller ID, Helia.”<br/>“Oneextralargecheesepizzacomingrightuphaveagoodday!” Helia hung up and threw the phone across the room, and the basement erupted into hysterical laughter.<br/>“Did I do something wrong?” Emory heard Helia ask Felix.<br/>Felix was grinning, too. “No, Helia. That was perfect. Stellar job.”</p><p>It was getting late.<br/>Emory was nursing a can of Coca-Cola, which he’d opened an hour ago when Olivine dared him to drop a mento in. Unfortunately, they’d all forgotten that if it wasn’t diet soda, exactly nothing would happen.<br/>“Truth or dare, Felix?” Ashail asked. Fae was sprawled across a chair, holding faer own can of soda. <br/>“Dare,” Felix said. They’d only taken dares all night. So had Emory, because everybody knew what happened when you were single and asked for a truth.<br/>Ashail’s face spread into a lazily wicked grin. “Okay. I dare you to kiss Emory.”<br/>“Oh snap,” Aelyn said from her vantage point, perched on top of the back of Ashail’s chair. “You really went there, huh?” Ashail grinned up at her.<br/>Emory didn’t want to look at Felix.<br/>Emory looked at them anyway.<br/>They were staring back at him, all the mirth of earlier gone. <br/>“No,” they said.</p><p>It was snowing outside.<br/>Emory had left the party.<br/>He walked home alone, breath pluming up into thick clouds of white that mingled with the huge fluffy flakes falling down on him.<br/>In the middle of the commons, he stopped, face tilted towards the sky. It was quiet, the only sound the soft shhhhh of snow hitting the ground. <br/>He liked the snow. He liked the night. It was so beautiful it made his chest ache a bit.<br/>Behind him, he heard footsteps. He turned.<br/>Felix stood a few feet away. The snow frosted their dark hair with slivers of silver. They wore Emory’s jacket like it was their own.<br/>They were so beautiful they made his chest ache a bit.<br/>“Sorry Ash asked that,” they said, staring into his eyes. Their lashes were dusted with snow. “Fae doesn’t know what happened at… the party.”<br/>Emory’s world tilted a little bit. “You said no. Because of what happened at the party.”<br/>Felix blinked. “Of course I did.” They blinked again, shifting awkwardly. “As I said, I’m sorry. I didn’t… fuck. I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable around me. Clearly that worked really well.”<br/>Everything was covered in spun-sugar snow. Emory looked up at the falling flakes and took a breath, then another.<br/>He stepped closer to Felix. They were shivering a bit, shrugging their--yes. their--jacket up around their neck.<br/>“You don’t make me uncomfortable,” Emory said. “Do I… make you uncomfortable?”<br/>Felix looked up at him. “No,” they said. Quietly. “Never.”<br/>“That’s good,” he said.<br/>“It is,” they agreed. Their cheeks were flushed. He couldn’t tell if it was from the cold. <br/>For a long minute, they stood there. Looking at each other.<br/>Felix was a good friend, Emory thought.<br/>But he didn’t want a friend.<br/>“Can I kiss you?” Emory asked.<br/>Felix blinked.<br/>They blinked again.<br/>They smiled.<br/>“Yeah, Emory. You can,” they said.</p><p>He </p><p>d i d.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. break</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At night, Emory held Felix.<br/>They slept on the floor every night now.<br/>Emory fell asleep to the sound of their heartbeat. <br/>He woke up to the same.<br/>It was a nice feeling. It was a different feeling.<br/>Emory still hurt, but it was a good hurt.<br/>They went ice skating once. Neither of them were very good at it; Felix fell more than Emory, but Emory never travelled much above a snail’s pace. It was fun, though, and at the end Emory’s cheeks hurt from laughing.<br/>Olivine had more parties, and they played more truth or dare, and sometimes Emory laughed so hard his stomach hurt.<br/>Often they would go on walks together, their boots crunching in the snow, and the snow was so blindingly beautiful it made his eyes hurt.<br/>And Felix would hug him or hold his hand or give him that smile that said they really were happy to be there, and Emory’s heart would hurt so much he thought it might explode.</p><p>On a particularly cold day just before winter break, they sat together in the common area. Emory leaned against the corner where the side of the couch met the back; Felix leaned against Emory, their feet tucked up underneath themself.<br/>Emory was reading a book for English class. He didn’t understand most of it, but he got the gist.<br/>Felix was reading a book for English class, too. They were bundled up in one of Emory’s sweatshirts, looking like they were practically drowning in the oversized garment. Judging by the frown on their face, it was either confusing or bad, or possibly both.<br/>“Are you going home for break?” Felix asked, suddenly slamming their book closed. It was bad, then, Emory decided.<br/>“No,” he said. He didn’t have one of those, not really, not anymore.<br/>“Good,” said Felix, “me neither.”<br/>Emory didn’t know much about Felix’s childhood. He wondered if they had a home. He wondered why they weren’t leaving.<br/>“It’s because I’m Harry Potter,” Felix said, very seriously. “He never went home for winter break, either. I’m hoping to become a wizard by never leaving school.”<br/>Despite himself, Emory smirked. “Wouldn’t peg you as a Harry Potter type of person.”<br/>Felix smirked back. “What would you peg me as?”<br/>“Hmm.” Emory grinned. “Carry On.”<br/>Felix rolled their eyes, though they were grinning, too. “Nice one, real creative.”</p><p>And yet on the first day of winter break<br/>Emory found himself standing alone in the lobby<br/>robbed<br/>of<br/>breath.</p><p>He wasn’t alone, actually. But he was without Felix, and the company he had could barely even be considered human in his eyes. <br/>Emory thought of himself as a monster in his darker moments. But Verix Clearris was much more of a monster than he could ever aspire to be.<br/>“Emory,” they said, smiling pleasantly.<br/>Emory said nothing at all.<br/>Felix was in class. They wouldn’t be back for a few hours. His other friends didn’t live in the building, and legally Emory still belonged to Verix, nobody would stop them from taking him, and of course they would take him, they were his parent why wouldn’t they take him—<br/>“Where are your things?” Verix asked. They looked so crisp, so proper.<br/>Emory’s fingernails dug into his palms so hard he felt like he was going to draw blood. “Upstairs,” he managed. Any more and he knew, he just knew he would have stuttered, and oh how he hated that stutter.<br/>“Go get them,” Verix said, nodding towards the staircase. “I’ll wait.”<br/>Emory turned and walked to his room. He felt strangely calm. No, not calm. Numb. <br/>What do you bring on winter break? Emory thought. He didn’t have much. Clothes, a lamp, his rug.<br/>Oh hell, his rug. Verix wouldn’t let him sleep on the floor, they never had, said it was bad for his back, and he couldn’t bring the rug he couldn’t bring the rug he couldn’t let them find out about Felix.</p><p>In the end, all he brought was a backpack full of books. He had clothes at the house, anyway. Verix would want him to look nice. His clothes here didn’t look nice. Verix gave the single backpack an appraising look but said nothing.<br/>The ride back to the house was quiet. Emory could feel Verix staring at him; they’d brought their chauffeur, of course they had, and now they sat in the backseat next to Emory where those cold eyes could bore into him for as long as they pleased.<br/>And then the car was crunching up the gravel drive—too soon, it was too soon—<br/>and at the top of the drive<br/>stood<br/>Jaydin.<br/>She waved at the approaching car. She was wearing her school uniform, a pressed ensemble of starch and dark fabric; her dark hair was pulled into pigtails, the corners of her mouth pulled up into a grin.<br/>Emory got out of the car.<br/>“Emory!” she exclaimed, running up to him, throwing her arms around him. Everything was too bright, too loud, everything was too much too much— <br/>She took his backpack from him. He barely resisted. “Go with your sister,” Verix said, softly, and he followed as if in a dream.</p><p>In the bedroom on the third floor, second from the end, Jaydin tossed the backpack onto the bed, far enough that Emory would have to crawl across the drowning-colored sheets to fetch it.<br/>“I’m so glad you decided to come home!” Jaydin said. She sat down on the bed of course she’d be okay with it and smiled up at him. “Ren said you might not. They said you hated us.”<br/>Ren. The word twisted Emory’s gut. How could Jaydin think of Verix as a parent? Sure, it was the name on Emory’s own ID, Emory fucking Clearris, it was the name everybody knew him by. But biology aside, Verix Clearris was not a parent. Verix was not. his. family.<br/>“I don’t hate you,” Emory managed. Don’t stutter don’t stutter don’t stutter. “But I wasn’t going to come h-home.”<br/>Shit.<br/>Jaydin frowned. “You—you weren’t? But—”<br/>“I’m here now,” Emory said. “So it doesn’t fucking matter.”<br/>Jaydin’s nose scrunched up at that. “You’re not supposed to say that word,” she said. “Ren said so.”<br/>When had Jaydin even started calling Verix Ren? Emory didn’t even like the word. It sounded weird. It sounded familiar. Jaydin wasn’t getting familiar with Verix, was she?<br/>Oh God. If Verix had been—if Jaydin—if Emory had left home just for Verix to turn on Jaydin—no no they wouldn’t do that they like Jaydin they don’t like me they wouldn’t do that would they?<br/>“They miss you, you know,” Jaydin said. “They say it a lot. They’re sad you went off to college.”<br/>“I bet they fu—freaking are,” Emory said. “I’m going outside. Text me when it’s time for d-dinner.”<br/>Jaydin pouted. “‘Kay. Say hi to the dogs for me.” She grinned, and just for a moment Emory hated her.</p><p>He could hear them. The dogs. Verix had a lot of them, kept them in an outbuilding out behind the main house. They didn’t like Emory—well they did, but he was food, no more, no less—Verix would send him out to the kennels when he was bad, would make him stick his hands in the jar of bacon grease they kept by the sink and then leave him in the kennels until the dogs the dogs the dogs— <br/>and he could hear them.<br/>It was still better to be out here, though, better than inside, better than that goddamn bedroom better better— <br/>Emory’s phone rang.<br/>He didn’t want to look at it, it was Verix it was Jaydin it was danger it was bad it was—but then the phone was in his hand and it was Felix and a moment later he was lying in the grass, eyes closed to keep the tears in, and quietly, he said hello.<br/>“Where are you?” Felix asked, and they didn’t sound worried, not quite yet, more confused, because “I thought we were getting dinner together.”<br/>“We were,” Emory said, and he thought his voice sounded pretty normal, or at least he hoped it did. “Something came up.”<br/>And now he could hear the concern in their voice. “What’s going on, Em?”<br/>He couldn’t quite force the words out.<br/>“Emory. Where are you?”<br/>“At home,” Emory said, quietly, too quietly.<br/>The resulting silence felt dangerous.<br/>“I’m coming,” Felix said, and they hung up.</p><p>No. No.<br/>Felix couldn’t come.<br/>Verix would find out about them and they would be angry and they would hurt Emory but worse they would hurt Felix and Felix couldn’t stand up to them Verix was a monster Verix was larger than life and<br/>Emory<br/>wouldn’t<br/>let<br/>them<br/>hurt<br/>anyone<br/>but<br/>him.</p><p>The Uber driver left Felix at the end of the driveway. They looked so small in comparison to the sprawl of the Clearris house.<br/>Emory waited by the side of the drive. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He couldn’t stop looking back up at the house, reflexively, because Verix or Jaydin could come outside at any moment <br/>and Felix’s arms wrapped around Emory, just for a moment, and then they pulled away like they thought they were doing something wrong and their eyes were full of worry and was that fear and <br/>footsteps.<br/>Emory’s heart stopped.<br/>“Emory,” Verix said. Pleasantly. “Who’s this?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. broken</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Emory couldn’t breathe.<br/>“Felix,” said Felix. Stiffly. <br/>Emory wished they had lied.<br/>“It’s a pleasure,” Verix said. Their smile seemed more strained than usual. “I’m Emory’s parent. Verix Clearris. Would you like to stay for dinner?”<br/>Felix glanced at Emory. Wary, and for good reason. Emory had no answer for them.<br/>“Sure,” Felix finally said. <br/>Verix still smiled. “Excellent. Come inside, why don’t you?”</p><p>For once, Emory had something else to focus on, something other than the crushing suffocation of the building he had grown up in. Felix’s reaction to the place, though mild, was enough to distract him from the endless terror of the place.<br/>“It’s big,” they said. Emory felt their fingers brush against his and jerked away. A shadow flashed across their face, and he cursed himself. Stupid stupid stupid, now they’re going to leave— <br/>Though if they left, he thought, they would be safe. <br/>They were wearing his jacket, he realized. He’d bought it himself after leaving for college, unwilling to wear something Verix had picked out for longer than he had to, so Verix might not recognize it. Please don’t recognize it, please don’t understand. Please.<br/>“Jay,” Verix called. Emory jumped a bit. “Why don’t you come down and show our guest around?”<br/>“‘Kay,” Emory heard, faintly, from upstairs. A moment later, Jaydin skidded into view. Her eyes were wide with curiosity. “Who’s the new guy, Em?”<br/>“Not a guy,” Felix said, simultaneously smiling and staring daggers at the sixteen-year-old.<br/>Jaydin looked surprised, but then shrugged. “Okay! Well, who are you?”<br/>“This is Felix,” Verix said before Felix could respond. “Would you like to give them a tour of the grounds?”<br/>Jaydin beamed. “Of course! Who wouldn’t want to spend some time with a pretty guy like you?” She skipped over and took Felix by the hand. <br/>“Go,” Emory said, quietly, because he couldn’t bear the thought of Felix being anywhere near Verix<br/>and then Emory was alone with the monster who called themself his parent.</p><p>“I wouldn’t expect you to like people like that,” Verix said. Pleasantly. “Makes me think you liked our time together more than I thought.”<br/>It took Emory a moment to understand, that Verix was nonbinary and Felix was nonbinary and somehow they thought that made them the goddamn same, and now that they’d said that it was all Emory could think, and that was really probably all they’d wanted in the first place.<br/>“So tell me,” said Verix, leaning in, “why is this… friend… of yours here?”<br/>Emory shrugged. His chest felt too tight, his breaths too short. “They just showed up.”<br/>“And you didn’t invite them?” Verix asked, eyebrows raised. “I find that hard to believe.”<br/>“I d-didn’t,” Emory said. For a moment, he was profoundly grateful that Felix wasn’t there, because he didn’t want Felix to hear him stutter again. He’d stuttered after the party with Jamie, he remembered it, and if Felix connected the dots—  <br/>They wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let them. <br/>And then Verix’s bony fingers were wrapped around Emory’s wrist, and all his conviction vanished.<br/>“Let’s play a game,” Verix said. They were strong, but not as strong as Emory, and yet Emory found himself powerless to resist. “I think we’re going to play a little game.”<br/>Emory didn’t know what that meant until they were at the kitchen door.<br/>“No,” Emory managed, pulling back. He was supposed to be done with this. He was supposed to be free from this. He was supposed to be free when he got to college, and now—and now—  <br/>Verix pulled the jar down from its spot next to the sink. It was dusty, because of course Jaydin never—no. He couldn’t think like that, not about his little sister.</p><p>The grease was cold on his hands.</p><p>He could hear the dogs behind the kennel gates, working themselves up into a frenzy of rage. Verix kept one hand on his back, guiding him closer.<br/>He barely even tried to resist.<br/>“Stay quiet and your friend knows nothing.” Verix smiled. “Make enough noise and I’m sure they’ll come see what’s wrong. I won’t stop them.” <br/>Emory understood.<br/>When Verix pushed him into the kennels, Emory held his breath.<br/>When the dogs mobbed him, he nearly bit through his lip.<br/>But he did <br/>not <br/>scream.</p><p>He was more careful than usual to keep his hands out of reach. After all, he was in college now, he couldn’t afford to lose the ability to write or type or hold Felix’s hand. And he had plenty of practice hiding wounds under long sleeves and heavy pants. <br/>When Verix finally shooed the dogs away, Emory was bleeding, from his lip, his arms, his legs. One of the dogs had scratched through his shirt, leaving a strip of mauled flesh down his stomach. <br/>He was weak, too weak to walk, and when Verix wrapped an arm around him to guide him back to the house he was almost grateful.<br/>“Don’t bring guests over without permission, okay?” Verix murmured as they stepped into Emory’s bedroom and let go of him. “Get changed. Dinner should be almost ready.”<br/>The door swung closed, and Emory dropped to his knees.<br/>It was okay. It would be okay. He was strong, he could be strong, and Felix would never even have to know.<br/>It would be fine.<br/>It took him a few minutes to muster the strength to stand again, to walk over to the connected bathroom. He hissed between gritted teeth as he daubed his wounds with a wet cloth; even once he bandaged them, criss-crossing white gauze up and down all four limbs, the scratches and bites burned and ached.<br/>He still hurt.<br/>It wasn’t a good hurt anymore.<br/>“Dinner, Emory!” Verix called just as Emory was straightening the collar on his long, dark shirt, the one he’d worn for years to hide the gifts Verix gave him. <br/>“Okay,” Emory said, and he headed downstairs.</p><p>Felix was already sitting at the table. So was Jaydin; she was next to them, with her chair scooted up close enough that Emory could read their discomfort from across the room.<br/>Jaydin looked up as Emory entered. He knew she recognized his shirt; she had to, it hadn’t been an uncommon sight for the few years since he’d gotten it. She said nothing, just smiled a bit and went back to her failed attempts at conversing with Felix.<br/>“Sit there,” Verix said, nodding at the chair on Felix’s other side. They sat at the head of the table, tucking a napkin into the collar of their shirt. “The food should be out in a moment.”<br/>When the servants brought in the plates, some sort of chicken covered in bacon crumbles, Emory could feel Verix’s laughing stare from down the table. His mouth dry, his arm aching with every movement, he dug in. It tasted like sawdust.<br/>“So, Felix,” Verix said after a few minutes, setting down their fork on the side of the plate with a dull clink. “What are you majoring in?”<br/>“Creative writing,” Felix said. They sounded more polite than Emory had ever heard them, and the urge to laugh hysterically welled up in him as he realized they were trying to make a good impression.<br/>Verix nodded mildly and sawed off another piece of chicken. “Do you like dogs?”<br/>Emory did his best not to tense; thankfully, any change in him seemed to go unnoticed by Felix, who appeared vaguely confused by the change in topic. “Yeah, I do.”<br/>“Excellent!” Verix said. “I’ll have to show you my kennels after dinner.”<br/>“No,” Emory said without thinking.<br/>All eyes were suddenly on him.<br/>Verix smiled, their usual pleasantness holding an edge of danger for once. “Why not, Emory?”<br/>Emory shook his head, stared down at his plate. Deep breath, don’t panic. “I just think Felix should get back to c-campus soon.”<br/>Shit.<br/>He couldn’t resist looking up at Felix. They stared back at him from across the table, brown eyes narrowed; slowly, their gaze travelled over to land on Verix.<br/>Verix smiled, because Verix always smiled. “Very well then. Felix, could I have a word with you after dinner?”<br/>A pause.<br/>Their eyes caught Emory’s again with a silent question.<br/>He couldn’t leave Felix alone with them. He couldn’t. Not when they’d done the things they did. Not when they were the person they were.<br/>They could do what they wanted to him, but they<br/>couldn’t<br/>touch<br/>Felix.<br/>Emory was shaking, but he stood.<br/>“No,” he said. “I think w-we’re both going to l-leave now.”<br/>Verix raised their eyebrows. “Are you, now?”<br/>Jaydin looked up at Emory with puppy eyes. “But—winter break! We’re your family!”<br/>Felix pushed their chair back so hard it screeched against the wooden floorboards. “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean shit.” They stepped around the end of the table and took Emory’s hand. “Come on, Em. Let’s go.”</p><p>It was dark out, and even from the other side of the house Emory could hear the dogs howling.<br/>Felix never let go of his hand.<br/>“How are we going to get b-back this late at night?” Emory asked.<br/>Felix shrugged, pulled Emory’s jacket more tightly around themself. “Don’t know. Don’t care.” A pause, and they glanced over at Emory. “Are you okay?”<br/>The noise that escaped Emory was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.<br/>“I’m great,” he said. “Let’s go home.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. the walk</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Felix tried to call an Uber once they were a mile or so from the house. <br/>No service.<br/>Every step sent sharp jolts of pain through Emory’s mangled legs, but he gritted his teeth and carried on, because anything, anything was better than being back at that house. He could feel Felix’s eyes burning into him as they walked; they never said a word, though, never asked what was wrong or how they could make it better.<br/>They walked and walked, down the road and around the corner, and when it looked like it might be shorter they cut through a field. The snow caked Emory’s boots and the hems of his jeans, it clung to him, and when he tripped and fell he rolled over onto his back and just laid there, snow soaking through his clothes and chilling his back.<br/>Felix looked down at him for a minute, and then they laid down next to him, nestling up against his side, wrapping their arms around him.<br/>“Do you want to talk about it?” they asked quietly.<br/>Emory shook his head.</p><p>It wasn’t cold, at least not for a winter night like this. The sky was jet black, sprinkled with stars like sugar crystals. The snow numbed the wounds it touched; where Felix held him, he felt warm.<br/>“We should go soon,” Felix murmured eventually. Emory thought they sounded on the brink of falling asleep.<br/>He fumbled in his pocket; his wallet was damp, but it was there. “Let’s find a hotel,” he said, gently extracting himself from Felix’s embrace.<br/>Felix nodded; together, they stood, stumbling away through the snow like the lost souls they were.</p><p>The closest hotel wasn’t a hotel at all; it was a motel, and when Emory checked in he suspected the woman at the front desk thought he was there to attack her.<br/>They were in a room a few doors down from the lobby. They took turns stripping out of their sopping clothes and into the long bathrobes the motel offered. When Emory got out of the bathroom, Felix was on the floor, surrounded by a veritable mountain of blankets and pillows and sheets. The beds were stripped bare, barely even recognizable as anything more than a pile of metal and mattress.<br/>Emory curled up with Felix, his chest against their back. Their hair smelled familiar. Lemongrass and soap.<br/>And even though he thought it would be impossible<br/>he slept.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. find my iphone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Emory and Felix woke up on the floor of the motel room, Felix’s phone was dead.<br/>“Where’s yours?” Felix asked.<br/>“In my backpack,” Emory said.<br/>A pause. “Oh.”<br/>They asked the receptionist if she would call them a taxi. She did make a call, though Emory suspected it wasn’t for a taxi, because an hour later they were still sitting outside the main building.<br/>“I missed my study meeting with Ruby,” Felix said at last. <br/>Emory didn’t know Ruby very well, but he thought she wouldn’t mind. Rumor had it she’d gotten rich off of some gambling app; she didn’t dress the part, though, and she showed up to everything late as a consequence of her gambling obsession.<br/>He was about to respond, probably with some vaguely snarky response about how it was winter break and there was nothing to study anyway, when a car pulled up.<br/>“Maybe she called an Uber instead,” Emory said, glancing at Felix.<br/>Felix hopped up off the curb. “I’ll check.” They walked around to the driver’s side and bent down to talk to the driver through the window; Emory stood, wiping off the backs of his still-damp jeans.<br/>A moment later, Felix straightened again and nodded at Emory. “Yeah,” they said, and their voice had a strange quality to it. “He’s here for us.”<br/>Something about the way Felix was acting set Emory on edge. But Felix was already sliding into the backseat, and Emory certainly wasn’t going to let them be in there alone if there really was something wrong, so he bit his tongue and sat down in the backseat next to Felix.<br/>The car was in motion the instant Emory’s door was closed. It was strangely designed for its model, Emory thought; the car was a minivan, black and rather dirty on the outside, but the inside was decked out with faux leather seats, cheesy flame designs embossed into the backs of the headrests.<br/>“So,” the driver said. Emory caught his eyes in the rear view mirror and shivered a bit. His eyes weren’t cold, quite the opposite in fact. They burned with a kind of… fervor that Emory had only seen once or twice before.<br/>“So,” Emory said back.<br/>He glanced at Felix. Their face was the picture of blankness. Something was wrong here, something was very wrong, and it had to do with the driver, but now they were on the freeway and there was nothing he could do about it.<br/>“What were you two doing so far from campus?” the driver asked; though his eyes kept flicking from the road to Emory’s and back again, Emory thought the question was mainly aimed at Felix.<br/>Emory began to respond, but Felix cut him off. “None of your business.”<br/>The driver glanced back at Emory again and smiled. “Just trying to make conversation.”<br/>Emory looked back and forth between Felix and the driver. He didn’t understand what was going on between them. They didn’t look at all related; physically they were completely different. The way Felix was acting, though, made Emory think they had to know each other in some way.<br/>An ex teacher? A former boss or coworker? Just a driver Felix had come into contact with before? <br/>“What’s your name?” the driver suddenly asked, turning back to Emory with a wide smile. “I’m surprised I haven’t heard of you before. If Felix has been travelling like this with you.”<br/>Emory blinked. “What do you mean?”<br/>Still smiling, Emory watched as the driver’s eyes flicked towards Felix in the mirror. “I’m Felix’s father. I would have expected to hear about it if Felix had found… a friend.”<br/>Emory turned to look at Felix. Felix turned to look out the opposite window. <br/>“Is this really your dad?” Emory asked Felix.<br/>“Yeah,” they said without turning back towards him.<br/>He’d been right, he thought. Something was wrong here.<br/>If Felix’s dad was anything like his own, he would— he would— <br/>Well. He didn’t know what he would do. But it would certainly be more than he’d done against Verix. He owed Felix that much.<br/>“Do you want to find another ride?” Emory asked Felix.<br/>They turned to look at him, and the look in their eyes scared him a bit. “No.” <br/>“...Alright.” Emory reached for Felix’s hand; they still didn’t look at him, but they clutched his hand like it was the only thing holding them together.<br/>Emory looked back up at the driver. He was focused on the road in front of him now, seemingly ignoring what was going on in the backseat. Somehow, though, Emory suspected that he was aware of every move he made.<br/>He didn’t like the man at all.</p><p>Ten minutes later, he liked the man even less.<br/>“How did you even find us?” Felix blurted. They were tense, so tense, like they could snap at any moment, and they were still gripping Emory’s hand like their life depended on it.<br/>The man picked up his phone out of the cupholder by his arm, wiggled it back and forth. “Find my iPhone. The things modern technology can do, hmm?” He smiled. “When you went off the radar this morning I was. Concerned.”<br/>Creepy, Emory thought, glancing at Felix.<br/>They didn’t even look surprised.<br/>“Why don’t we play some music?” the driver asked, fumbling to plug his phone into the car with one hand. <br/>He’d been expecting the driver to play bad music, he thought, but this wasn’t awful at all.<br/>Felix clung to Emory like they were drowning.</p><p>Twenty minutes later, he thought he might have hated the man.<br/>“That was our exit,” he said, craning his head around to watch exit 52 slip away behind them.<br/>The man met Emory’s eyes in the mirror again. “I think you’re mistaken.”<br/>“About?” <br/>“We’re going… home,” Felix said.<br/>Home.<br/>Felix hadn’t been planning to go home for winter break. The way they’d talked about it, in fact, had made it sound like they had nothing to go back to.<br/>And now this strange man had shown up out of the blue in a decked-out minivan, claiming to be Felix’s father, and Felix had just—gone along with it?<br/>That was nothing like the Felix Emory knew.<br/>“I don’t think I ever quite caught your name,” Felix’s father said. “I’m Moran. Moran West.”<br/>“Emory,” Emory responded shortly.<br/>“A pleasure, Emory,” said Moran. “Tell me. How did you meet Felix?”<br/>Emory glanced over at Felix. “School,” he said slowly. <br/>“And are you two…?<br/>“None of your business,” Felix snapped. <br/>Emory could see Moran raise his brow in the rearview mirror. “It was just a question. Don’t get so fired up, Felix.” Out of the corner of his eye, Emory saw Felix flinch, though he couldn’t quite tell why.<br/>The rest of the ride was silent.</p><p>They got out of the car<br/>and every move Felix made was a flinch.<br/>Emory tried to take their hand, but they snatched it away. He would have been concerned if he hadn’t done the same thing at Verix’s house.<br/>No, he wasn’t concerned about Felix not holding his hand. <br/>He was much more concerned about the way they were acting.<br/>They seemed scared.<br/>The only other time he’d seen them look scared was at school, at— <br/>Don’t get so fired up, Felix.<br/>Emory couldn’t keep his hands from balling into fists as he followed Moran into the building, keeping between Moran and Felix as best he could.<br/>Maybe this man wasn’t responsible for Felix’s fear, but he knew about it. And he’d still brought it up.<br/>Emory was angry.</p><p>Felix lived not in a house, but in an apartment.<br/>“The stairs are out,” said Moran. Emory didn’t know what that meant. “We’ll take the elevator.”<br/>“No,” blurted Felix.<br/>Emory and Moran looked over at them as one. The fear in their expression made Emory tense.<br/>“Well, you have to, if you want to see your mother,” Moran said. <br/>Felix didn’t look convinced.<br/>“Or Jacqueline,” Moran added.<br/>That did it.</p><p>They stepped into the elevator. Emory stood in the middle; Felix seemed torn between squeezing themself as far into the corner as they could and standing as far from every wall as possible. <br/>Moran pressed the button for the fourteenth floor.<br/>Felix leaned into Emory’s side as the elevator began to move. He looked down at them; their face was sheened with sweat, their gaze distant.<br/>He hated it.<br/>Before he could think better of it, he wrapped his fingers around theirs. This time, they clung to him, leaning more heavily against him. Their eyes closed. Emory wondered what they saw behind their eyelids.<br/>Emory looked up at Moran. He was looking back; when their eyes met, he gave a little smirk.<br/>This man knew exactly what he was doing, Emory thought.<br/>The elevator dinged, and Felix broke away from Emory, stumbling out into the hall, heaving in great gulps of air.<br/>Moran stepped out behind them, gave them a smile. “Come inside, Felix. Don’t disturb the neighbors.”<br/>“They’re not disturbing anyone,” Emory snapped.<br/>“Shut up, Em,” Felix said, straightening. Emory flinched.<br/>Felix stepped into the apartment without looking at him.<br/>And robbed of any better option, Emory followed them.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. the apartment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Wests’ apartment was small. Or, rather, it was made for smaller people. Emory found this rather odd; Moran was tall, and Felix was tall-ish. Though maybe, he reflected, it was by design. Everybody seemed more menacing when they were being compared to a tiny, cramped kitchen.<br/>Felix’s discomfort was obvious. Maybe not to most people, but Emory thought he’d known them long enough for that. They wouldn’t have been smirking half as much if they’d been comfortable here. Or if they had, it would have looked a lot more genuine.<br/>“Have a seat,” Moran said. He nodded at the kitchen table. Another girl, probably in high school, sat there already. “I’ll make us all some tea.”<br/>When Emory glanced at Felix, they were frozen in place. Their eyes were fixed on the girl at the table.<br/>The girl looked up, and her eyes went wide. “Felix?”<br/>“Jackie,” Felix said quietly.<br/>Jackie suddenly shoved her chair back, standing. “My name is Jacqueline.”<br/>Felix flinched. “Ja—Jacqueline!” they said as the girl fled down the short hall to the left. She vanished into a room, slamming the door behind her, and for a moment all was quiet.<br/>“Have a seat,” Moran repeated. He sounded almost… pleased. <br/>Emory decided that he hated the man.<br/>Felix was visibly seething, but they sat down, their movements stiff. Emory hesitated before following suit. <br/>Moran set a mug of tea in front of each of them, steam swirling off of the dark liquid into the air, and then sat down across from Felix with a mug of his own. “So,” he said, taking a long sip of his tea. “Emory. What are you studying?”<br/>Emory shrugged awkwardly. He always hated answering that kind of question, always hated admitting that he hadn’t gotten into school on academic merit — in fact, he’d gotten into college more in spite of his academic record than anything. “Fencing scholarship,” he finally said. <br/>He expected the typical surprise, the fumbling for something to say, the “That’s nice.” To Moran’s credit, he did none of that.<br/>“Fencing,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve been doing it for a long time, I’d assume?”<br/>Emory tensed but tried to hide it. “Yeah,” he said. “Long time.”<br/>He hadn’t really fenced for long, only since ninth grade. But Verix had let him hold a sword for the first time when he was four, let him swing it when he was five, and when they’d realized what good entertainment it could be they hardly ever let him put the sword down again. By the time he had the chance to join a real fencing team, to compete in the real sport, it was like an extension of his arm, though the rules and style and even the weapon itself were completely different from anything he’d done before.<br/>Felix suddenly picked up their mug and tipped it back, downing the entire cup of tea at once. “Great,” they said, standing up. “This has been so fun, really. Come on, Emory.”<br/>Emory stood. “Alright.”<br/>And then Moran stood, too. “Where are you going?”<br/>“To see Jackie,” Felix said. “And then to go — to go home.”<br/>Home.<br/>Emory didn’t miss their choice of words. By the looks of it, Moran didn’t either. “I see,” he said, his expression darkening. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Go ahead, Felix. See your sister. Leave Emory here with me.”<br/>Felix, already starting to move towards the room that Jackie had disappeared into, stopped dead. “Fuck no. Emory, come on.”<br/>Moran smiled. “You either take Emory with you or you get to see your sister. Don’t worry. I’d just like to have a chat with your friend here.”<br/>“I’ll be fine,” Emory said. “Go.” Felix shot him a look — Emory wasn’t sure what it meant — and then slipped away into the room with Jackie, closing the door behind them.<br/>Emory turned to Moran, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to say — probably something stupid, given the fact that every word that had come out of the man’s mouth made him hate him a bit more — but before he had the chance, the front door opened.<br/>A woman walked in, her face splitting into a wide smile at the sight of Emory. “Well, hello! My husband texted me, I came as soon as I could! You must be the boyfriend.”<br/>Emory was a bit too taken aback to do anything except nod. “Um. Yeah.”<br/>“Wonderful,” the woman said, pulling Emory into a tight hug. Even though she was quite a few inches shorter than Emory, Emory felt distinctly out of his depth. “I’m Felix’s mom, Ola! Would you like to go on a walk with me while we wait for Felix to finish up?”<br/>“Uh,” Emory said.<br/>“Perfect,” Ola said, smiling brightly. </p><p>Five minutes later, Emory and Ola stood behind the apartment building.<br/>There was a pool there, though it was covered by a tarp, which was in turn covered in snow. There was a firepit, which looked like it had been used fairly recently, the snow stomped into a greyish mess around the blackened charcoal.<br/>“So how did you meet Felix?” Ola asked. She led Emory around the side of the pool into a small, mostly-dead garden. <br/>Emory glanced back at the sooty firepit. He remembered Felix’s fear of the bonfire on the first day of the semester. He wondered if the two were connected.<br/>“We’re roommates,” he said instead.<br/>Ola laughed. It was a nice laugh. Emory decided he still didn’t like it. “Roommates? How convenient.” <br/>“I guess,” Emory said.<br/>Ola looked back at him. Her eyes were bright. “You two must get along very well, then.”<br/>Emory frowned. “Yeah…?”<br/>“That’s good. Felix always had trouble getting along with people, you know. You wouldn’t want to know the things they did.” Ola shook her head. “Then again. They would have told you if there was anything important, don’t you think?”<br/>Emory didn’t, in fact, think that. But Felix’s reticence didn’t mean that they were a criminal. “Probably,” he just said.<br/>Ola nodded. “Well.” She smiled. “I suppose we might as well head back up to the apartment, don’t you think?” Emory nodded. He was more than ready to get Felix and get the hell out of here.<br/>He followed Ola up to the apartment. They took the stairs, and Emory felt a surge of rage. Clearly Moran had made them take the elevator earlier out of pure malevolence. The stairs worked perfectly fine.<br/>Moran was sitting at the kitchen table, swirling a spoon gently in a mug of tea. He stood as Ola opened the door and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. “Hello, dear.”<br/>Emory looked around. Jackie’s door was open again; he could just see her around the edge of the doorframe, reading a book and swinging her legs back and forth over the edge of her bed. “Where’s Felix?” he asked.<br/>Moran frowned.<br/>“Felix?” he said. “They left.”<br/>Emory just stared at him. “What?”<br/>Moran nodded, still frowning. “They got into a… disagreement. They left. They said they were heading back to school. Took an Uber.”<br/>Emory looked around the apartment. It was small, though, and there was nowhere Felix would have reasonably been hiding. And there was no reason, either, for them to hide from him. He hoped.<br/>Ola smiled sadly. “Felix has always been impulsive like that. If you want to catch up with them, you probably want to leave now.”<br/>Emory’s mind reeled. Felix had<br/>left.<br/>He couldn’t imagine why. And it hurt, knowing that they’d just… left him here.<br/>Something must have happened to make them leave like that. Looking at their so-called parents, Emory suddenly found it not at all hard to believe.<br/>“Okay,” Emory said. “Okay.”<br/>He turned.<br/>And he ran down the stairs in pursuit of Felix.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>